Category: weather

Friday’s Theme Music

A colorless, empty sky drips on us. Friday, 12/30/2022 — 30/12/2022, if you will — has come in from the wild.

Three songs share the rotation in the morning mental music stream. I don’t know if the dream caused it, but they were regurgitated out of memory when I started thinking about the dream. Mom and two of my sisters featured in the dream about crosswalk safety and clogged sinks.

But, first, daylight commenced at 7:39 when light slowly gained influence behind the cloud lid over the valley. Rain was falling and the furnace’s warm air passed against me like a friendly animal waiting for attention. Daylight’s end is expected at 4:48 PM. We’re sitting at 42 F and the day has a lofty goal of 46 F in mind. Between light, rain, and temperature — and my activities of reading, writing, cleaning, plus the usual bio needs for human and felines — it’s a narrowly defined day. Getting ready for the big 2022 send-off. What do you think, will 2023 be a better year? I think another average year is in store. With averages, it’s different for each of us, innit?

Led Zeppelin kicked off its residence in the morning mental music stream with “Whole Lotta Love” from good old 1969. It wasn’t long as the dream elements arose for inspection that Gerry Rafferty began “Baker Street”, a song he released in 1978. The musical trio was completed with Loggins and Messina, “Your Mama Don’t Dance”, 1972. An interesting grouping of sounds, artists, and years. Don’t know the connection to the dream. Maybe one isn’t there. Perhaps Les Neurons just said, “Boy, I really like this song.” Or maybe something embedded in the environment, noted by the senses, ordered, “Play this song.”

Well, Rafferty with “Baker Street” is playing loudest and most frequently, so that’ll be the day’s theme music. “Light in your head and dead on your feet, well another crazy day,” and so on.

Stay positive if you can — I know it can be hard and varies for each of us — and test negative, if you can. Got any New Year’s Eve plans? I do, starting a cuppa coffee, a little flavor of normalcy for another rainy winter day. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Hello to my fellow air-breathers of Earth, which could be an interesting band title. But then again, I thought last night that “Friends of a Different Life” would be an interesting novel title.

It’s December’s final Thursday, which bestows the day with the honor of being the year’s final day. Our day has polarized feelings about its position. Eastern and southern window views are lavish with sunshine. The other two directions find white bottomed sky embracing the houses and playing hide and seek with trees. It’s 41 F, a hospitable winter temperature, with aspirations of duplicating the feat of the last several days and seeing 51 F. I’ll take it. Wish it would snow on the mountains. Guess I need to do another snow dance. The last one might’ve backfired. I’m not saying that my last snow dance is responsible for the bomb cyclone which dumped massive snow and iced up much of northern and eastern North America, but coincidental timing is suspect.

This friendly sunshine began its visit at 7:39 today. 4:47 PM will see the sunshine’s tour end. It is December 29, 2022.

Today’s themey music was prompted by The Neurons and the cats. Felines were trying to herd me. On my side, I was playing the classic floof game, “What do you want?” I kept asking, “What is it that you want? Are you hungry? Need food? Is your water okay? Do you want to go out? Is Lassie in a well?” The questions kept going and then I just urged them, “Come on, show me what you want. Show me the way.”

The Neurons said, “Oh, he wants some Frampton.” “Show Me the Way” from 1975 spun up in the morning mental music stream. As a treat, I found a recording of it on it on Midnight Special, a television show which used to showcase the hit pop and rock performers and their songs. Many friends of the era would ask if I’d seen X on Midnight Special last night. Current gen folks can’t understand the huge differences in our technology from now and then. The wasn’t as wide as me as the one between me as a child and my grandparents, but the scale of change and what can now be done got faster and faster, becoming a dizzying and impressive shift.

Sorry, somehow put on my old man pants. I was just pondering, what was it like in the late eighteen hundreds when they had to deal with the weather? Television, radio, and computers were all in the future. How much warning was given before something like a snowstorm struck? How was the word passed?

Think I need some java, and I’m not talking script. Stay positive and test negy. Here’s the throwback. Cheers

PS – Do you think Final Friday might be a good novel title. Has probably already been done, don’t you think?

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

My mischievous Neurons have been busy as a DJ this morning. “Jamie’s Crying” (Van Halen) was first up. Then, “Running with the Devil”. Next, Zucchero with “Diavolo In Me”. Then INX, “Devil Inside”. What the what? I’ve settled now on Grateful Dead with “The Devil Is A Friend of Mine” from 1970.

I don’t know what inspired The Neurons. I recall one short dream and two movie style dreams but nothing else happened at night or yesterday which would make me consciously think, “Say, some music about the devil would sound good right now.” Weird.

Get out your Wednesday best. It’s December 28, 2022. Are you counting down the days or hours until 2023. I’m seeing a lot of posts online about things to do to make your 2023 better. Seems like many think 2022 wasn’t a good year. It had its ebbs and flows for me. These things kept re-balancing the year. I’d say it turned out neither horrible or terrific for me. After all the transactions and their results are tallied, I had an average year. Hope yours was excellent.

Sunshine came in like a cat doing a royal stroll at 7:39, dragging light and warmth with it. We’re 37 degrees F at the moment and expect (drum roll) a 48 F high and maybe some rain. Sunlight will ditch us with its setting at 4:46 this evening.

I hear from weather postings that the wind and rainstorm which we had, product of an atmospheric river, is moving east and causing others issues. Good luck to them.

Stay positive and test negative. I do believe my coffee is ready for a close encounter of the drinking kind. Here’s the Dead. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Moderately hard winds moaned and grumbled through the neighborhood last night. Toward eleven, I was in the kitchen when I heard a noise. It sounded like the heater could be on but it was coming from the wrong direction, or that a faucet was running, but again, no faucets where the sound seemed to be. I walked around to localize the sound only to realize, it’s a hard rain drumming on the roof outside the vaulted ceiling in the great room. It’s so rare that we have heavy rain, I didn’t recognize its sound.

Wind and rain went on throughout the night. Nice to have rain but we need snow. I can’t believe that we’re at the end of 2022 and we still don’t have weather control. The mind reels with unintended consequences which we might be dealing with now if we did have it. Weather control was always one of my favorite science fiction ideas as a child, along with space travel, teleportation, exploring other planets, and ‘time travel’. We have none of that yet. Even flying cars have evaded us. I think it’s because extraterrestrials got in among us and have sabotaged our efforts because they don’t want us advancing, but that’s just me.

Doesn’t feel like winter outside, probably because there’s no snow and ice, not even any on the surrounding mountains. It’s all sunshine and blue sky today. The temperature is 48 F and the grass is as green as late spring. Our high temperature will be just three degrees higher, but still, this is December’s end in the northern lats. Where is the cold stuff of last week? To be fair, this is around our average high. Lows usually touch the lower thirties, though. We wouldn’t mind some of the cyclone bomb snow obliterating a lot of the U.S., although cyclone bomb sounds like a bath thing. If we had that weather control, maybe we could protect others and save ourselves from drought. Instead, we’re dithering with social media.

The sun’s influence arrived with a full blaze at 7:39, just two hours ago. Sun fall will begin about seven hours later from now, if I’m doing the math right, which is very iffy. I haven’t had any coffee.

Hearing that rain last night and thinking about how hard it was falling brought out a Dylan tune called “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”. The song came out in 1963 but I didn’t get familiar with it until after “Tangled Up in Blue” came out in 1975. Dylan wasn’t played much on the AM radio which I listened to in the late sixties and early seventies. It wasn’t until Tangled came out and I was stationed in the Philippines that I went searching for more Dylan and discovered his earlier stuff. I was twenty then, and became engrossed with his lyrics and style, so I bought a few album, listening to them as I painted and drew when I was off duty and not partying or exercising. I deem “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” today’s theme music. Mentioning that, the state up north and east of us is worried about this rain, because it’s going to melt the snow, opening a can of problems with flooding.

It’s Tuesday, December 27, 2022. Go have yourself a ball. I’m going to have coffee. Here’s Dylan’s somber song. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Monday began with a crash. The cats rushed in. One tentatively walked forward, eyeing the wreck. The others sat down and looked at me. “You’re in trouble,” he said.

I knew he was right. I’d begun unloading the clean dishes from the dishwasher. A small ceramic bowl was on the counter. I picked the white thing up, thinking, where can I put this so it’s out of the way? As I turned, it yelled, “For love,” and threw itself from my hand. It crashed to the floor and splintered into forty pieces or more, like a huge white KFC offering. The bowl’s last words were, “Tis my heart,” then it was no more.

I cleaned up the mess with care. It had landed on a kitchen throw rug. I took that off and shook it out, and then vacuumed the crime scene. The cats monitored everything to ensure I did it right.

My wife came into the kitchen as I finished. “What happened?” I explained it all. I knew it would affect her. Yeah, it did. The white bowl sits in the middle of a bamboo serving tray. We’ve had it since I took my first lesson in being married. I’m still learning. We paid about $20 for it at a store like K-Mart, but you know how it is with these things that you buy when you’re poor and first starting out. They’re cheap and priceless.

Or maybe you don’t know because you were never poor or never started out, or you lack sentimental bones and think, it’s just a bowl, get over it. Oh, you heathen.

Anyway, I can still see the bowl leaving my left hand. I still wonder how it happened. I still see my wife’s look when I explained, and I still hear the noise it made when it kissed the floor.

Depressing way to begin a day but not as bad as some things which could’ve happened, I tell myself. That’s true. Just read the news.

The Neurons began my day with two songs in succession in the morning mental music stream (trademark pending). First was “Abacab”, a 1981 song by Genesis. I believe that’s in mind because of yesterday’s theme song, “Turn It On Again”. That lasted until I looked out the window and checked the billowing trees and crashing rain. Then The Neurons dropped “Manic Monday”, written by Prince, performed by the Bangles, released in 1986. But then, watching rain and wind and a single scrub jay out the window, Les Neurons pulled up another 1986 song, a reflective tune by The Steve Miller Band called “I Want to Make the World Turn Around”. It starts with a sax, which surprised me when I learned it was a Steve Miller offering. Wasn’t startled to learn later that was Kenny G. playing sax. Had that feel.

Today is December 26, 2022. Hope you and yours can seize the day. Sun rose here at 7:38 and will set at 4:45. The high will be 56 F and there’s a wind warning out. Right now, it’s 51 F. A Christmas cactus sits in sunshine in the living winter, offering some joy in its red blossoms. Other than, it’s just another Monday.

Time for coffee. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Warmish and foggy, kind of cool, too. It’s Christmas day in southern Oregon.

Dawn dashed in under the fog’s cover at 7:38 in the morning. I fed the cats and we prepared food to take to our friend’s house for Christmas brunch. Sipping coffee, I looked out the kitchen window. The fog was hurrying away. Sunshine struck the valley’s southern edge, lighting the trees and the blue sky.

I thought about all the matters which have gone well for me and pushed that aside. Homelessness plagues our small town. All those people were out there, looking for places to get warm, to be safe, to rest their bones and minds. I helped a few this week but it never feels like enough. Never. It’s a pattern encountered across the nation, one of the most powerful societies the world has ever seen.

I thought about the misery of people in other states hanging on as snow and ice storms undercut their infrastructures and cut their power. I thought about the military forces battling for arcane logic in Ukraine and the people trying to help one another to stay alive there. Then I thought about all the wealth hung onto by our world’s most fortunate families, individuals, corporations, wondering if they’re the most deserving, and how the sperm lottery affects our existences. I’m flattened often by stories of the wealthy do the most that they can to stay wealthy and make more money. Work harder, others are told. It’s just that easy.

Just Christmas reflections, little different than my recurring daily thoughts. Not original, but worn and tired.

My music today has nothing to do with the holidays. The song came out of dreams and efforts, weariness but hope. Called, “Turn It On Again”, the song is by Genesis. Released in 1980, the song is about a man whose friends are the people on TV.

Have a merry one. Happy holidays to you, whatever your flavor of seasonal celebrating as the common era year slides to an end. Hope you’re warm and safe, with a belly full of food.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Good Christmas Eve morning, if that’s your float. We’re warmish here today, 42 F. 13 degrees C is possible as a high. Once enclosed with dense fog, it’s thinning. Sunshine is coming up after it’s muted 7:37 morning arrival. This is Saturday, December 24, 2022 CE. 1643 will see our daylight period cease.

The eastern and southern US states are coping with severe weather conditions this week. Snow is falling or winds are rising. Freezing temperatures are causing rolling blackouts due to increased demand. Flights are canceled, roads are closed, as are businesses. Hang on, people. Take care of your animal friends and one another.

It’s becoming regular, these storms. Our exclusion to them is becoming the norm. Each year, some weather function forms. Storms move around us and attack the rest of the country past southern Oregon and California, with a few other lower neighboring states. This results in terrible winter conditions for places who weren’t planning to welcome freezing temperatures and snow. With the snow bypassing us, our snowpack isn’t replenished, and our drought continues and worsens. The decade’s weather is sucky. Let’s hope improvement is on 2023’s to-do list. I keep checking on family and friends to ensure they’re alright. My sisters and their children grew up in the stuff and think of it as BAU. Mom, an Iowa girl who transplanted herself to Pittsburgh, PA, loves snowy weather, finding it cozy and romantic. She doesn’t go out in it, though, preferring to stay warm and contemplate the world from behind some glass. Others must go to her.

The earlier fog had me in a science fiction and fantasy mood. Once again, I seemed to be peering at the world’s end. Maybe, my brain suggested, the lack of existence beyond this close silvery gray curtain is due to reality being rearranged or a power failure in my reality program. Do not adjust your set. I wonder if young people know what we mean by that. Do they need to adjust their televisions? Why were they called television sets, and why did we stop?

The science fiction mood prompted Les Neurons to lift a 2016 song by Highly Suspect called “My Name is Human”. Its sound feels lifted right out of an earlier rock era. When I heard it while traveling, and its recurring line, “Hello, my name is human,” I decided to pursue more info on it and saw the video and read about its writer’s belief that aliens are among us along with androids. I can get with that. There are many times when I encounter another and wonder if they’re human because of how they act.

The fog is gone. Coffee time. Stay safe and positive, test negative, and enjoy whatever holiday you embrace. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Salutations to Earth peeps. Friday is storming in across many parts of the States. Wind and snow are shutting down airports and highways even as people hunt for ways to reach home across the land. We, though have a temperate day working out. Temperature sits at 47 F now with mild rain pecking the land. Not much sunshine in evidence as clouds veil it but a high of 52 F is modeled as probable.

Today is December 23, 2022. Seven days until the year’s end. A new one will begin and as they say, the beat goes on. The sun’s visit began in the day’s early morning, 7:37, and will go for another seven hours and six minutes. Huzzah.

My feline boys are enjoying our weather shift. Both went out to stand sentry on the front porch. Papi also did a little patrolling. They’re happy floofs for the mo’.

My wife’s holiday treat preparation lies behind Los Neurons’ song selection. Something about the season brings her to use peppermint in some of her treats. Smelling that, Los Neurons said, “Remember this 1967 song?”

“Incense & Peppermints” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock commenced playing in the mental music stream last night and still rides the brain waves this morning. Do you know this song? “Who cares what games we choose? Little to win but nothing to lose.” Nothing to lose is often heard in ‘Merica. Back against the wall in your mind and pockets empty, despair dwelling in your spirit, why not go for broke? Nothin’ to lose.

Hope you stay positive and test negative and reach the new year, and the new year becomes a new start that ends up meaningful. Here’s the music. Now it’s me to get down with coffee time. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

“Out in the fog, the fog dancers begin moving. They only appear when it’s foggy. The thicker the fog, the more fog dancers there will be. They want humans to come out, walking in the fog, so the fog dancers can grab them and make them one of their own. If you become a fog dancer, you’ll dance for the rest of your life and never see sunlight again.

“That’s why I don’t go out in the fog.”

I don’t remember this, as I apparently did it on a whim, but my sisters insist that I told them this story when I was about twelve. My three youngest sisters said the fog terrified them for years. They said that I also said that adults know about this and that’s why they don’t go out into the fog. It worked well because Mom would always say, “Oh, I don’t like the fog,” and shiver whenever she looked out and saw fog.

As I said, the sisters claim that I told them this, and I don’t doubt them. Sounds like me. I think of it today because pretty deep fog is out there. Some trees and bushes look like fog dancers.

Remember the movie, The Fog? The sisters said that as soon as they heard of that movie, they remembered my tale.

It’s December 22, 2022. Just three days before the C holiday. And then, boom, the after Christmas shopping rush begins. It’s nutty.

36 F out there today, with timid sunshine squirming through the fog. S’posed to rain today. That’s the weather rumor. 49 F is to be our high before the sun peters out of the valley at 4:42 later today, just seven hours and five minutes after the sun kicked over the eastern mountains.

Got “Rockafeller Skank” by Fatboy Slim from 1988 occupies the morning mental music stream. I know exactly when The Neurons turned it on this morning. I’d raised the blinds, looked out and saw the fog. The Neurons responded to this by opening, “Right about now, the funk soul brother, check it out now, the funk soul brother.” Fog and funk. Sure, makes sense. I think The Neurons are losing it on some days, but I enjoy the song. Not many lyrics and easy to learn. I had a friend a few years after this song was released who always insisted, “That’s not really music.”

Stay positive and test negative.

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